But while the UFC 9 main event was completely forgettable, one of its supporting bouts remains a part of combat-sports mythology: The unexpected appearance of Olympic gold medalist Mark Schultz, and his sole MMA fight against Gary Goodridge.

We’ve already told you about Schultz’s backstory — his incredible success in freestyle wrestling, his gold medal at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, and the murder of his older brother Dave Schultz, which forms the basis for the upcoming movie Foxcatcher. So how did Mark wind up in the cage that night in May 1996?

Sometime after the UFC’s debut in 1993, Schultz became interested in the new sport and began studying jiu-jitsu under Pedro Sauer in Utah. By 1996, Schultz was working with Canadian UFC old-schooler Dave Beneteau, helping to prepare Beneteau for a slated bout against Gary Goodridge at UFC 9. Less than a month before the event, Beneteau broke his hand. Figuring he could compete despite the injury, Beneteau decided to train through it — but plans changed at the last minute. Here’s what happened, according to a profile on Schultz that was published after the event:

My name is Wil Horneff. I’m a black belt in BJJ and an instructor at Training Grounds Jiu-Jitsu & MMA in Westwood, NJ. My biggest claim to fame was being the bully ‘Phillips’ in the classic film The Sandlot. At the age of 35, I can safely say that I have been told through the years that I “play ball like a girl!!!” more times than any other man alive. Unfortunately, this accusation is undeniably true. In the 8th grade, I stood an impressive four foot eleven inches tall and was always the last kid picked for teams; it just went without saying.

So it was ironic that in the Sandlot I was supposed to be a badass baseball player (and the team captain, no less).

But what’s a child actor doing talking about baseball on an MMA website? I’ll get to that in a second.

As a kid doing his first film, everything about The Sandlot was incredible and it’s hard not to look back on it with a bit of nostalgia. The lot itself was nestled behind houses in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was there for about 2 weeks for shooting and even though I had a smaller role, I hung out with the sandlot kids as one of the gang. In real life, everyone seemed pretty true to the characters they played in the film which is one of the strategies for casting kids. However, leaving the set and going back to real life was always a let down because when I left the set the real life bullying would resume.

Bullying is a hot topic nowadays. On the one hand, even the smallest slight can summon accusations of bullying, as was the case with a student who attended my Jiu-Jitsu school. The child did not want to invite a particular student to his birthday party and the uninvited child’s parents accused them of bullying their child by not inviting them. These days, bullying not only includes sins of commission but omission as well, apparently. On the other hand, you have California mayor Cameron Hamilton saying that kids who are bullied need to simply “grow a pair.” There is a ditch on either side of the road and keeping oneself on level ground is not always an easy task.

(And yet, this is still the most shameful thing that Kevin Casey has ever done.)

Drug testing at the UFC’s back-to-back events in Las Vegas earlier this month caught two more PED-cheaters, who will be facing fines, suspensions, and the overturning of their victories. MMA Junkie broke the news yesterday evening.

We’ll begin with middleweight Kevin Casey, who tested positive for the anabolic steroid drostanolone following his 61-second TKO of Bubba Bush in the curtain-jerking match at UFC 175. The fight represented a second chance in the UFC for “King” Casey, who bounced out of the promotion last year after a stint on TUF 17. Unfortunately, Casey has pissed all over that chance, and might find himself on the chopping block after this one.

I don’t exactly know what I’m looking at here. Elias sent me this video today, and the best I can describe it is “Riot breaks out during a shirts vs. skins game of either rugby or capture the flag at a Renaissance Fair held at an Italian prison.”

Watch this video for five minutes and try to figure out the rules of the game. There are at least 50 players on the field at any given time, with players drifting in and out seemingly at random. The referees are the guys in the colorful shirts, I think. The object of the game is to take the ball into the end zone, like a normal sport, but — in a hilariously ghetto twist — there are no end zone markings or goal posts to speak of. You just throw the ball against the fence when you’ve made it all the way without being knocked out.

After some googling, I’ve learned that the video shows a game of calcio storico (“historic football”) or calcio fiorentino, a game that dates back to 16th century Italy. Here are some amazing facts from the wikipedia page:

- “In 1574 Henry III of France attended a game of “bridge fighting” put on in his honor during a visit to Venice; the king is recorded as saying: “Too small to be a real war and too cruel to be a game.” Man, that is just classic Henry III of France.

The MMAsphere suffered a collective Scanners.gif headsplosion when it was announced that Nick Diaz would be returning from a brief hiatus/retirement to face Anderson Silva at UFC 183 in January. While most of us were undeniably stoked at the idea of seeing Diaz Stockton Slap the G.O.A.T and/or seeing Silva unleash a Hadouken on Diaz’s jabroni ass, there were a few naysayers out there who were quick to dub this fight a “freak show” or “squash match.”

“Are you kidding me? Silva’s going to murder this chump!” said one Twitter expert whose name I cannot recall.

“Pssh, Silva is done. The only thing left to do is have Diaz beat him into retirement,” said another, angrier group of tweeters in response.

And indeed, with Silva’s leg and Diaz’s mind remaining in constant question, the superfight has fiercely divided MMA fans who mistakenly fancy themselves psychics. But the important question, as is always the important question in these cases, is: What do the bookies think?

Highly regarded light-heavyweight Jan Blachowicz has become one of Poland’s greatest home-grown talents, with a 17-3 record competing almost exclusively for the KSW promotion. Blachowicz hasn’t competed since March 2013, but he’s currently riding a five-fight win streak, including decision wins over UFC veterans Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, Mario Miranda, Houston Alexander, and Goran Reljic.

The UFC announced this morning that Blachowicz will make his Octagon debut against Latifi at UFC Fight Night 53, October 4th at the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, Sweden. (Only on Fight Pass!) Latifi is coming off a quick TKO of Chris Dempsey earlier this month, which came after his historic manhandling of Cyrille Diabate at UFC Fight Night 37 in March, in which no significant strikes were attempted by either fighter; Latifi won by guillotine choke after three minutes.

The inevitable has finally occurred: TMZ is reporting that Spike TV has cancelled TNA Impact Wrestling after nine less than spectacular years. It is unclear when the final edition of Impact will air, but TMZ says that TNA’s deal with Spike runs through October. Neither Spike TV nor TNA have released official statements at this time.

So why are we covering the death of a minor-league professional wrestling outfit that did everything it possibly could to run itself out of business on CagePotato.com? Because this is the same promotion that partnered with Bellator to bring us King Mo’s (unintentionally hilarious) wrestling career and Tito Ortiz slugging Rampage Jackson with a hammer. It goes without saying that the Bellator/TNA partnership is about to dissolve, but what can we expect Spike TV to replace TNA Impact with? Will this bring more MMA to Spike TV, or will Spike just find another indie wrestling organization to fill in TNA’s shoes? Your guess is as good as anyone’s at this point, so let’s recklessly speculate for a while.

Isn’t it a little premature to write that TNA Impact Wrestling has been cancelled, considering that TNA could still renew with Spike TV/find a different network?

Sure, Spike TV could still renew TNA Impact, just like someone hypothetically could hold the UFC flyweight and heavyweight titles simultaneously. Not that it matters, but rumor has it that Spike TV executives cancelled Impact because they learned that TNA president Dixie Carter hired Vince Russo as a consultant, even though Spike specifically told her not to give him a job. If that’s true, that’s an oddly appropriate note for a company so hellbent on running itself into the ground to go out on.